The Defense Against Dark Magic classroom.
By then, Peter had realized that Hermione was no longer the little girl he had known before. She had always been clever, but she had never had these little tricks.
The sudden flood of information, coupled with his constant suspicion that Sirius might be nearby, had caused him to let several inconsistencies slip into his words.
Hermione had seized on those inconsistencies and kept pressing him.
Even the onlookers were beginning to wonder whether Hermione was going too far.
"So your purpose in staying with Ron's family all this time was to get the latest news from the wizarding world..."
"But in our first year, you clearly knew what we were doing, yet you did nothing. Based on your earlier analysis, you're someone who follows the strong, but that person was very weak at the time, so you never revealed yourself..."
"You just responded to my question with silence. Professor Holmes said that when someone chooses silence in the face of a question, it means they tacitly admit it..."
Hermione's barrage of questions left the surrounding students' heads spinning.
Weren't they supposed to be getting information about Sirius Black out of Peter? How had it turned into Peter being the real traitor all those years ago?
After Hermione's repeated hints, Harry finally followed her lead, assumed Peter was the traitor, and asked:
"So why exactly did you betray my parents? My father always thought of you as a good friend..."
At those words, Peter finally erupted. First, he clawed wildly at his hair, then roared:
"A good friend? Ha! A good friend... Potter's good friend wasn't me. It was that idiot Black. We all shared a dormitory. What right did he have to look down on me?
"If that poor fellow Remus hadn't recommended